


ever as fate must

by helwolves



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Beowulf AU, Cuddling, M/M, Post-Kerberos Mission, Storytelling, sheith charity zine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 16:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10834866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helwolves/pseuds/helwolves
Summary: For a moment Keith considers just punching him in the shoulder, rolling away, and burying himself under the blankets—but Shiro is still smiling softly, and his eyelashes are casting shadows along his sharp cheekbones, and Keith is weak in some ways.“So. There was—a castle.”Keith tells Shiro a bedtime story.





	ever as fate must

**Author's Note:**

> This was my piece for the [sheith charity zine](https://twitter.com/sheithzine), so it was written last fall. At first I was thinking about them telling each other fairy tale AUs in bed, then somewhere along the way my brain went "...Beowulf AU??" and here we are. I worried everyone's work would be affected by S2 coming out before the zine did, but I think this still works, maybe even better. (Read: more angst.)

“Okay, so... a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away—”

“Seriously?” says Shiro, propping himself up on his elbows.

Keith lets out a small growl, low and only half deliberate. “Look, do you want a story or not?”

Shiro grins at him, just a hint of a smirk. “Sorry, sorry. I do. Please?” He lies back down, crossing his arms under his head and closing his eyes. For a moment Keith considers just punching him in the shoulder, rolling away, and burying himself under the blankets—but Shiro is still smiling softly, and his eyelashes are casting shadows along his sharp cheekbones, and Keith is weak in some ways.

“ _So_. There was—a castle.”

_A castle in the middle of a great wood. Or whatever. The king of the castle and his warriors went into the forest every day and fought monsters there. And they fought the king’s enemies, and brought all the treasure the king could want back to the castle, and then everyone had a huge feast in the hall. They counted their treasure and drank a lot of mead and everything was pretty amazing._

_Until the day a monster came out of the wood that was like—this one was the real deal. None of those level-grinding monsters. All muscle and fur and fangs. This one tore things up. Broke through the castle doors and sent all the goats and the servants running and shrieking. And the king’s best warriors tried to fight him off, but he wrecked them too. Every night he came, and he couldn’t be stopped._

_Then one day some knights from a far-away kingdom showed up. They’d heard about this monster trouble and got on their armored war lions—_ shhhh _—and made the long journey. They told the king they were there to take care of things. The next night, the monster came back like always, but the lion knights were ready. They fought the monster—ripped one of his arms right off, sent him running into the trees howling and bleeding._

_The king and all the people in the castle cheered and thanked them, and they hung the monster’s arm on the gate in triumph._

“That always seemed a little unnecessary,” Shiro interrupts.

“It was a monster.”

“Monsters can be people too.”

Keith pokes Shiro in the ribs. “Well, this one deserved it. Anyway—”

_Little did they know, that monster was only so badass because even further into the forest lived his mother, this terrible witch. She found him dead and bloody in the swamp, and she vowed revenge on whatever bastards had killed her son—her creation. So she came to the castle the next night herself and killed some more dudes and took the arm with her when she left._

_The lion knights knew their work wasn’t finished, and they followed the bloody trail through the wood until they came to the swamp. It was full of dark magic and led them wandering astray. But the leader of the knights was the truest hero and finally he found the witch’s cave. He battled his way down past all her clawed illusions, and he fought her through his exhaustion and all his wounds. In the end, he used one of her own weapons to defeat her, and cut off her head, and made his way back to the swamp where the other knights had gathered after fighting monsters of their own._

_They rode back to the castle in the wood and were rewarded with, like, piles of treasure and gold and swords and things. And a really big party where nobody was even killed at the end of the night. And then with all the monsters and the witch defeated, they rode home to their own kingdom and—and everyone lived happily ever after._

“Uh. The end?”

When Keith stops talking this time, Shiro stays quiet. Keith wonders if he’s even fallen asleep, but his breathing is uneven and there’s a tenseness in his jaw. “Sorry, I—was that too much? I didn’t mean...”

He’s saved from having to sort out exactly where he meant to go with that when Shiro grabs him around the middle and pulls him against his chest. “No, it wasn’t...” Shiro’s voice is soft, not much more than a rumble near Keith’s ear. “It’s just—did you ever finish reading that?”

A blush threatens to scorch Keith’s cheeks. He might’ve been the best pilot in his class once upon a time, but he and Shiro both know he was never the model student. Shiro would have finished all of _his_ assigned reading, of course, and then some.

“Not sure,” Keith lies. He twists in Shiro’s arms, tucking his face in against his shoulder.

“He defeats the monster and the witch and becomes a great leader back in his own kingdom. And then there’s a dragon.”

“That sounds cool.”

“Well... He goes off on his own to stop the old dragon from terrorizing the people, and he does, he stops it, but he—he sacrifices himself to do it. He knows he’s probably going to die and he goes anyway because—there isn’t any other choice.”

“Shiro...”

Shiro hums. “Maybe your version is better. You knew where to end it.”

His fingers have been carding through Keith’s hair, but he stops then, one hand sliding to grip the back of Keith’s neck. Keith pushes at his chest, loosening Shiro’s arms just enough so he can lean back and look up into his dark eyes. But Shiro’s not looking back at him—instead seems like he’s looking somewhere much more distant than this little blue-lit room in this big improbable castle in this vast unknown galaxy.

“There’s also more than one hero in my version,” says Keith, his voice sharper-edged than he’d intended. “He’s not fighting the dragon alone.”

Shiro does look at Keith then. For almost too long, and too intently, making Keith wonder—not for the first time lately—if there’s something he isn’t saying. With a tired-sounding sigh, Shiro knocks his forehead against Keith’s, a bit too hard, just right. Keith slips his arms around Shiro’s shoulders and pulls himself closer, his lips brushing against the corner of Shiro’s jaw.

“Yeah,” Shiro breathes. “Definitely better.”

★

**Author's Note:**

> Keith, Keith, you should finish your assigned reading. Or maybe don't.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/helwolves/status/871866859599138816) ★ [tumblr](https://helwolves.tumblr.com/)


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